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This week, I explain the Diskpart utility that comes as part of the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit" and "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit." Specifically, I tell you how to use Diskpart to extend a volume, create a mirrored disk, and create a RAID 5 set.

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2. FAQS

Q. What's the Diskpart utility?

A. Diskpart is similar to the MS-DOS Fdisk utility, which lets you create and view partitions from the command line. However, Diskpart does much more than Fdisk. In addition, the Diskpart UI matches the graphical interface of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in.

Diskpart is part of the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit" and the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit." (Microsoft includes Diskpart as a core utility in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.) You can download the tool for free from Microsoft's Web site.

To run Diskpart, type

diskpart

at the command prompt, then press Enter. Rather than relying on command-line execution, you actually run commands inside the Diskpart environment. When you're finished, type

exit

to leave the Diskpart environment. For example, the screen might display

A. You can use the Diskpart utility from the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit" or the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit" to extend an existing volume by performing the following steps:

Download the Diskpart utility from the Microsoft Web site, then install it on your computer.

to extend the selected volume. If you don't pass any parameters, Diskpart will use all unpartitioned space on the current disk. Alternatively, you can type

extent size= disk=

to set a size and disk to use for the extension.

Type

exit

when you're finished.

You can extend only volumes created on a dynamic disk, not volumes created on a basic disk that you've upgraded. If you try to extend volumes created on a basic disk, you'll receive the error "Diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending."

Q. How can I use Diskpart to create a mirrored disk?

A. You can use the Diskpart utility from the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit" or the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit" to either create a new mirrored disk or mirror an existing disk. (Be aware that Windows XP doesn't support mirrored disks.) To create a new mirrored disk, perform the following steps:

Download and install the Diskpart utility from the Microsoft Web site.

A. A RAID 5 set consists of data spread across three physical disks, of which one can fail without causing any data loss. To use the Diskpart utility from the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit" or the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit" to create a RAID 5 set, perform the following steps:

Download and install the Diskpart utility from the Microsoft Web site.

Go to Start, Run, then type

cmd

to start a command-line session.

Type

diskpart

to start a Diskpart session.

Type

create volume raid size= disk=

where is the amount of space you want to use from each disk (in megabytes) and are the numbers of the disks that you want to use in the RAID 5 configuration. For example,

create volume raid size=6000 disk=1,2,3

creates a RAID 5 set that's 12GB (i.e., 6000MB x 2) across three disks (one-third of the space is used for fault tolerance).

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